writing

Sometimes when inspiration eludes me, I get stuck in a mental rut. I put things off, I get distracted, I feel that there’s no point in starting as I’m not in the right frame of mind to write. But over the last year or so, I’ve really focused on the problem. It doesn’t matter if what I write, right now, is a load of complete drivel. I’ve done something, I’ve got it down on the page, and I can return to it.

I’ve got a few articles on the go at the moment, and what I’ve so far put together for each separate piece is not that great. But I can see elements of something quite special in all of them that I might be able to draw on, to pick and choose from, to get the words I want. I’ll probably write, re-write, and edit each one several times and I might not be happy with it then. But if I must be a perfectionist, I must also be a realist. A first draft is rarely the finished item, and if it is, then it’s probably not that good.

I spend a lot of my time alone, and travelling, and it gives me time and space to think. I come up with so many witticisms and points of principle that I do usually recall when I am back, sat at my keyboard. A little bit of distance allows me to mentally edit my prose from afar. The detachment allows me to look at it again with fresh eyes. And having seen the improvements I’ve made since allowing myself to make mistakes, I’m convinced now that this is the correct way to approach writing.

The hope it has given me has encouraged me to start a number of projects that I’ve had in the pipeline. I’d been putting them off, waiting until inspiration found me. Well it doesn’t work like that: you must find inspiration. Inspiration comes from within our own minds. Whether it is the ability to come up with an original idea, or a good eye for spotting an opportunity, it is 100% man-made. There’s no magic formula or mystical connection – it is created by us, and we bring it into being by imagining, re-imagining, and putting it on paper. If we never write it down it remains a dream.

Tonight I was scanning the blogosphere for interesting things to read and comment on, and I found this: [How to Prepare for NaNoWriMo: Your 4-Week Success Plan]. When I saw the abbreviation, I knew what it meant, although I can’t tell where it was that I first saw it. I remember it generating a lot of Twitter activity last year, so maybe I’m thinking of the hashtag. Anyway, a while back I wrote a post about the futility of writing for writing’s sake, by churning out 500 words of absolute drivel. But there’s something about this that seems appealing. I have ideas for a few books, and I attempted to write one a few years back. Unfortunately I was suffering from undiagnosed depression at the time; and so everything was a huge mental effort, and my self-motivation was non-existent. But now, I’m on the road to recovery. Some days can still be So. Damn. Hard. But I am well enough to function at least some of the time. I’d like to give it another try. Maybe the focus and intensity of NaNoWriMo will help me with its targets and goals. Maybe the rigidity of it will tempt me into not bothering. But I have to give it a go. I’ll let you know how it goes (and include a link to the finished masterpiece, of course).

One thing I’m unsure about is whether or not to include my planning and reviewing time within the month of November or not, like in the link above. The NaNoWriMo community is based around word count, and I wouldn’t consider my disordered planning scribbles to necessarily even be words, so I guess that planning it beforehand is ok. Or maybe I’ll start writing now, and use November as a way to rack up 50,000 words of the total

I’m undecided as to whether I want to take part in the actual contest or not. If I do write a novel, I want to get published for sure, and NaNoWriMo is great publicity. But it may also thrust me into the spotlight a little too soon: I’m very particular about things being finished just right (this is a symptom of OCD, but you don’t have to have OCD to be a nitpicker). This is also completely antithetical to the creative writing process. I don’t seem to believe in drafts or rehearsals, yet these are a necessary part of the production of a work of literature. Maybe I need to practice leaving things unfinished. Perhaps NaNoWriMo could be just the therapy I need.

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